


never look surprised

by daisysusan



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-26
Updated: 2012-08-26
Packaged: 2017-11-12 23:25:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/496835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisysusan/pseuds/daisysusan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's going to be a good friend now Liam's got a broken wrist and can't get himself off. Really. That's all he's doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never look surprised

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Torakowalski](http://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/) for reading this over! 
> 
> For the prompt "friendship" at on dreamwidth's cottoncandy_bingo.

Harry flings himself onto the bed before he thinks it through properly, and as a result there’s a flare of guilt in his stomach when Liam flinches, clutching his right arm against his chest. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

“S’alright,” Liam says, of course he does, but Harry still curls loose around his other side, the one without a broken wrist and kisses the side of his forehead.

“It’s not,” Harry says, nearly pouting. “You’re _hurt_ , that’s not alright.”

Liam wraps his arm around Harry’s shoulders and pulls him closer. “It’s not so bad.”

Harry stays that way for a long moment, so long he might doze off, because he’s not sure when Liam’s fingers stopped being on his shoulder and moved to his hair. Liam’s talking, too, whispering comforting words in his ear. 

The first ones Harry actually processes are “I’m glad you came ‘round; it’s been a bit lonely. I think the lads are avoiding me from guilt.”

That—that’s not fair. Liam’s still in bed, which probably means his painkillers are making him all woozy and he’s been ordered to stay put—Harry can’t think of anything else that would keep him off his feet—and feeling bad that they might sort of a little bit be responsible for him breaking his wrist isn’t a good reason to leave him all alone. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Harry manages to ask, though his words are dragging, blurred with sleep. He’s tucked into Liam’s shoulder and Liam’s fingers are toying with his earlobe. “Anything you might usually do with your right hand, you know.”

Liam turns bright red, Harry can feel his skin warming and he’s a little proud of Liam for having a dirty mind. It wasn’t meant as a uniquely sexual suggestion but—well, curled together on Liam’s bed, Liam’s fingers toying in his hair, Harry would be a saint if he weren’t thinking about sex. 

“I can make do,” Liam says, and if he’s uncomfortable it’s not enough to stop him running his fingers against Harry’s scalp. “I’ve got a perfectly good left hand.”

“S’not the same,” Harry says, too relaxed to realize that perhaps he shouldn’t reveal that piece of information. 

Liam snorts lightly and turns his head toward Harry, ending with his nose buried in Harry’s mop of curls. “What, you’ve tried?”

“It was a dare.” Harry shrugs, and Liam giggles where the hair has probably tickled against his face. 

“You and Louis have a very strange friendship,” Liam says, sounding resigned. 

 

The thing is—Harry wasn’t serious, not really. He’d wondered, vaguely, whether Liam would be able to get himself off with his left hand or if he’d figure some other way out—Harry had barely managed it when he’d tried—but hadn’t given serious thought to actually getting Liam off himself. 

Well, before he suggested it.

Afterward, he has a lot of trouble _not_ thinking about it; the picture of Liam spread out in his room, wanking himself with his left hand, hard and desperate and not quite able to finish himself off kept appearing in Harry’s dreams. And in his fantasies, which is giving him more than a little trouble. 

It doesn’t help at all that it isn’t the first time he’s ever thought of Liam and sex, as such. Look, Harry is eighteen and horny all the fucking time, and Liam is really obnoxiously attractive, he’s thought about it a handful of times, that’s all. 

And then Liam starts getting tetchy. Well, not really tetchy, not by the standards of any normal person, but for Liam, it’s unusual. He snaps at them more easily, laughs at Louis less, it takes almost no provocation to cause him to put on his stupid (adorable) growly face. And Harry—Harry can’t shake the mental image of Liam frustrated, unable to wank properly and going mad with it. 

It’s been—Harry pulls his mobile out to check the calendar—almost three weeks since Liam broke his wrist. That’s a long time to go without a wank; he knows he would be out of his mind after half that. 

The least Harry can do is—help. Or suggest alternatives. Something, anyway, he can’t just leave Liam high and dry. As it were. 

Liam’s shut himself up in his hotel room for the night, doing whatever the hell it is he does in there, Harry’s never been properly sure, and Harry barges in without knocking. He begged a key card off Paul and decided that it was better to not risk Liam telling him not to come in—forgiveness and permission and all that. 

Of course, when Harry had speculated, as he occasionally did, about what Liam did on the nights he was alone in his hotel room, he’d usually imagined vocal exercises or practicing his guitar or maybe just spending the whole time on twitter. 

What he hadn’t anticipated was actually seeing Liam on his back, awkwardly fisting his cock with his left hand and biting his lip so hard Harry wants to soothe it for him. With his tongue. Because seeing this, this is like something from a horny dream or a porno created specifically to drive him completely insane, not something that happens in real life. Except for how he’s seeing it, right there, Liam’s hips jerking up into his hand, stomach shaking slightly. 

Harry is genuinely concerned he might swallow his tongue. 

Liam’s eyes have gone wide—not sexy, I’m about to come wide, but embarrassed and slightly panicked. His hand falls away and he’s scrambling for a sheet, his cheeks as red as Harry’s ever seen them, darker than they went the first time Harry stripped in front of him years ago. 

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, and—Jesus fuck, his voice is _wrecked_. 

“Shit, Liam,” Harry says, because the half of him that isn’t so turned on he might die is honestly apologetic and a little embarrassed. That’s—not really something Liam meant him to see. “I just wanted to check you were alright.”

“Thanks, mate.” Liam looks like he means it, which is incredible; if someone’d walked in on Harry wanking and claimed they wanted to check up on him, he’d have screamed at them to get the fuck out, isn’t is obvious he’s busy? But no, Liam seems to appreciate having Harry drop by, even though it’s clearly interrupted him doing much more interesting things. 

Except—this band, it gets rid of all personal boundaries. It’s not like Harry’s not heard Liam wanking before, they’ve all heard each other, and, well. He looked like he wasn’t getting on (or rather off) particularly well. 

“Do you need some help?” Harry hears himself saying. “It won’t be a thing, you just look like you’re a bit hard up.” Mentally, Harry apologizes for the regrettable pun.

Liam looks like he wants to die and Harry has no idea if it’s from mortification or arousal. But then he nods sharply, just once, and covers his eyes with his left hand. (His right is lying useless on the bed in its cast.) “I can’t do it,” he says sheepishly. 

Harry squares his shoulders and walks over to Liam’s bed, careful not to make eye contact. He doesn’t want to see Liam’s eyes, how they’re probably black and heavy-lidded and entirely too much like a series of exceptionally filthy dreams he’s been completely unable to forget. This is probably going to be unbelievably uncomfortable, after, when Liam’s going to realize he’s had Harry’s hand on his dick, when Harry has to look him in the eye and pretend that just the _idea_ of getting Liam off didn’t get him painfully hard. 

He is, distractingly hard against the zip of his jeans, but that’s not why he’s here; Liam’s his mate and no one deserves to be stuck going months without a proper orgasm, that’s just cruel. 

Sitting down, Harry lets his eyes slide over Liam’s dick, hard against his flat stomach—this is really not any better than making eye contact would be, maybe he should just look at Liam’s hands or something. Liam’s hand is still over his eyes, which is a relief because it means Harry can look all over and also that he doesn’t have to worry about Liam noticing his hard-on. 

“Are you sure?” Harry asks softly, because Liam is desperate but he has to be sure. “You could probably lie on your stomach and rub one off or—”

“No,” Liam grits out, squeaky and tense. “I can’t prop myself up for long enough, it hurts my wrist.”

“Oh, right,” Harry says. And then he wraps a hand—his right hand, specifically—around Liam’s cock, loose and hesitant, and starts jerking him slowly. 

Liam, though, Liam arches into it like Harry’s doing something amazing. Harry bites his lip hard, determined to be nonchalant about this, not make any noise. It’s a favor for Liam; they all need him calmer, less tense. When Liam goes off the rails, when he’s not there to pull the rest of them back in, nothing seems to fit. There’s a reason they refuse to call themselves One Direction when they’re not all there, and having Liam messed in the head is just as bad as Zayn going home in the middle of tour. 

It doesn’t matter whether this gets Harry off, just whether he can (finally) let Liam get off. 

That, unsurprisingly, doesn’t take very long. Liam was—it makes his dick twitch painfully against his jeans just to think about it—Liam was _desperate_ , nearly writhing on the bed, fucking hard into Harry’s fist as soon as it’s around his dick, biting his lip but still unable to stop the noises he’s making, soft, high whimpers in time with Harry jerking him. 

He comes messily over Harry’s hand, his whole body going tense as he arches off the bed and then flopping back weakly. 

Harry, for his part, valiantly resists the urge to lick his hand clean, wiping it on his shirt instead. Liam frowns halfheartedly, trying for disgusted and coming up with something closer to sleepy. 

“See you tomorrow,” Harry says, as he bolts out the door. 

Back in his own room, he briefly considers taking a shower but ends up falling onto his bed and wanking, messy and too fast and trying desperately not to think of the way Liam bit his lip and tried so hard not to make any noise with Harry’s hand on his dick. It’s a futile effort, though, and that’s the image behind his eyelids when he comes hard, hips rising off the bed. 

 

The real problem is that Liam has another four weeks in the cast, at least, and there’s no way they can let him get that worked up again. Especially not now Harry knows what to do about it. So he slips into Liam’s room a few nights later, while Liam’s flipping absentmindedly through the television and glancing at his twitter occasionally, and gets his attention with a soft, “Hi.” 

“Hi!” Liam replies, cheerful but a little off, not quite meeting Harry’s eyes. 

“I,” Harry begins, stalling when he realizes that he hasn’t worked out how he ought to say this. _I really want to jerk you off again_ is probably not the best opener because, well, this is a favor he’s doing Liam, he’s asking if Liam needs (or wants) to get off again not doing this for himself. “Do you want me to—you know, jerk you off?” he says, schooling his face into something that hopefully resembles friendly and helpful rather than broadcasting that he’s really interested in spending more time examining what the soft skin of Liam’s dick feels like in the hand. 

“Er,” Liam says, turning a shade of red Harry didn’t know human faces could achieve. 

“I don’t mind,” Harry adds quickly. “It’s—well, it’s just me being a good mate, yeah? Same thing I’d do for any of you.” That’s … probably not true, strictly speaking, but a white lie to make Liam more comfortable doesn’t matter that much in the big picture. 

“Fine.” Liam’s still not looking at him, which is probably a good thing because just thinking about getting his hand back in Liam’s pants has Harry half-hard already. “I—it’ll help. With me not yelling at you all.”

There’s an ache in Harry’s stomach that’s part anticipation and part arousal and he’s determined to ignore it. Liam doesn’t want anything from him but a favor. 

Still, though, he’s going to do this properly.

Sitting down next to Liam on the sofa, Harry tries to catch his eye and, eventually, Liam allows him to. “Do you want to do it here?” he asks, and Liam nods once.

There’s no way to do this without looking, not from the beginning, so he might as well enjoy it. Liam’s trousers are tighter than usual—shit, he has a semi just from talking about Harry getting him off, that’s new and terrifyingly exciting information. Especially for Harry’s dick, which is now pressing uncomfortably against the zip of his jeans; he continues ignoring it. 

Slowly, Harry undoes Liam’s trousers, letting his fingers drag slowly along the outline of Liam’s cock through his pants. The way Liam’s hips press into it is almost indiscernible—almost but not quite, Harry notices it and his dick throbs as he does. Liam’s got his head back over the sofa, where he can’t see Harry, and Harry’s going to take full advantage of it. He can feel Liam getting harder under his fingers, the way his dick is pushing into Harry’s loose touch and the way he’s breathing heavier. 

The temptation is too strong, now. Harry slips his hand into Liam’s pants and moves it slowly down the length of him, fully hard now, skin warm and soft and just a little wet at the tip. It’s—addictive, is what it is. He never wants to stop touching, learning the way Liam takes in a sharp breath when Harry thumbs across the tip or the way his hips shift into the touch when Harry touches him so light it’s barely there. 

Liam squirms a little and Harry uses his spare hand to push at Liam’s trousers and pants until Liam’s dick is free of them, red against his white t-shirt. Harry moves his hand to the base, cupping Liam’s balls briefly and trying to subtly gauge Liam’s reaction without actually coming in his jeans. The reaction is that Liam bites his lip hard and his left hand moves like he’s going to jerk himself off but stops partway there; Harry’s glad, both their hands on Liam’s dick would be. Well. He probably would embarrass himself if that happened. 

He pulls his hand away from Liam to spit in his palm and Liam whines slightly, his hips pushing into nothing. He’s wetter at the tip than he was a few seconds ago and—Harry wants to suck him off. 

A lot.

The only thoughts he’s managing to hold in his mind right now are how much he wants to climb off the sofa, kneel in front of Liam, and lick all the way down his cock, and how absolutely vital it is to their friendship and also his entire life that he _does not do that_. 

Harry closes his eyes and focuses on gripping Liam firmly, not so tight he can’t come and not so loose he won’t be able to, paying attention to Liam’s breathing and the rolling of his hips to get it right. He’s still warm and hard and enough to make Harry desperately want to stick his free hand into his own trousers and get himself off, but this way it’s easier to keep from thinking about the weight of Liam’s cock on his tongue and what the skin would taste like—salty and a little bitter and _Liam_. 

It’s probably best to get this over with quickly, really. Harry jerks his hand faster, twisting on his upstrokes, and watching the muscles of Liam’s stomach work as his hips move as he fucks into Harry’s fist. Jesus, that could be his mouth that Liam is fucking like that, if—

The noise that escapes Harry is completely involuntary and, though he tries to make it sound like a cough, it’s pretty unmistakably a quiet moan.

“Oh,” Liam gasps, and then he’s pushing up into Harry’s fist once more and staying there, stomach shaking as he spurts messily across his own shirt. 

“Fuck,” Harry whispers, sounding reverent. 

And then he mumbles something about hoping that helped and leaves as fast as humanly possible with the worst hard-on he’s ever had in his fucking life. 

The minute he’s through the door into his own room, he leans up against it and shoves his jeans down. He’s not even with anyone else and it’s embarrassing how quickly he comes, barely three strokes and the slightest thought of Liam’s dick in his mouth and he’s gasping out a thoroughly wrecked _fuck_ as he sees stars and collapses, shaking, against the door. 

It takes him a very long time to realize that he probably sounded just that wrecked to Liam. 

_Fuck._

 

Harry does it again, shows up and offers to get Liam off, against his better judgement. Other things are the same too, the way Harry can’t tear his eyes away from the tip of Liam’s dick as it disappears into his hand, the way he wants to know what it tastes like, and what Liam’s skin tastes like besides. The main difference this time is that Liam blushes less, and Harry can see the way his eyes are flicking down to where he’s pushing into Harry’s fist. 

Or rather, that’s the main difference until he hears himself say, low and fast and completely incautious, “Can I suck you off?”

Because, apparently, being the presence of Liam’s magnificent dick renders his brain-to-mouth filter completely useless. He really, honestly, genuinely wants to _die_ , can feel his cheeks flaming. Liam hasn’t reacted yet, is still staring at his dick moving through Harry’s fist, but it’s going to get uncomfortable when he realizes what just happened. 

Except—no. Somehow, Liam thrusts up hard, harder than Harry’s ever seen him before, and chokes out something that is so clearly “Yes” that Harry’s head might explode. 

Before he can think about it, before he can decide it’s a spectacularly good way to ruin a friendship, _before Liam can realize what he just agreed to_ , Harry is on him. 

Well, specifically, he’s on his knees in front of the sofa, running his tongue across the tip of Liam’s cock and trying not to think too much about how he was evidently just gagging for it. Some things are best left unexamined, such as the reason that just getting his mouth properly around Liam, swirling his tongue around the head and sucking lightly, makes him so hard he’s a little lightheaded. 

It’s uncomfortable—painful, really—that he’s still wearing ridiculously tight jeans. He can practically feel each tooth of the zip against him—and he’s actually wearing pants today. That’s just unfair. 

The only other thing available for Harry to focus on is what he’s doing with his mouth and the way Liam’s reacting. He’s still sucking on the tip, but he wraps his hand back around the base and moves it very slightly; the low, throaty noise Liam makes is probably going to fuck up his singing tomorrow but is also completely worth it. Inhaling sharply through his nose—the smell of Liam’s skin is heady, all salt and sweat and musk—Harry sinks down a little farther, deliberately letting his throat open up. 

He’s not really in a position to bite his lip, so there’s not much he can do to keep from moaning when Liam’s cock hits the back of his throat, heavy and solid against his tongue. Liam thrusts into his mouth, probably involuntary, and manages to gasp out “Sorry, Harry,” except his voice cracks on Harry’s name, which—fuck, if that’s not one of the hottest things he’s ever heard. Pressing the heel of his hand to himself through his jeans in a desperate attempt to not embarrass himself, he swallows around Liam to keep himself from groaning. 

“Fuck,” Liam says, and from the way his voice breaks, going as high as Harry’s ever heard it, he knows he’s not going to be the only one sounding a bit off after this. 

Harry just ignores what it does to his dick when Liam swears, the way it _throbs_ against the zip of his jeans like he’s in one of those terrible novels Gemma used to buy and hide from Mum—opening his eyes, Harry focuses intently on the gyrations of Liam’s stomach as he forces himself to keep his hips still. He’s moving up and down Liam’s cock as fast as he can now, sucking hard as he pulls up and then swallowing on the way down. Liam’s face is, well, it’s fucking hot and if it makes Harry’s stomach flop around unexpectedly, that’s just something he’ll have to deal with. 

When Liam speaks again, it’s actually a grunt, which shouldn’t be sexy at all but his stomach and thighs are shaking with the effort of staying still and his voice is shaking, wrecked and out of control. It helps that what he’s saying is “Harry, shit, Harry, I’m about—” 

A mate would probably pull off, jerk Liam until he came, and then leave. A mate would definitely not close his eyes and swallow his cock down one last time, wouldn’t swallow his come, wouldn’t want to kiss him after. 

Of course, Harry’s pretty sure a mate wouldn’t have offered to suck Liam off, either. And wouldn’t have got turned on by all of this in the first place. 

It’s confusing is what it is, too many thoughts swirling around, especially given that most of his blood is not in his brain right now. 

Liam’s pulled out of his mouth, but otherwise he’s completely still, eyes huge and dazed and lips red—was he biting them? The hand Harry’s still got pressed against his dick has suddenly become a lot more conspicuous now Liam’s not distracted by getting sucked off, and he removes it rapidly. 

“Thanks,” Liam says as Harry stands up. There might be a way to arrange his shirt so that his boner is less obvious … no, no there really isn’t. Best just get gone as fast as possible, then. 

“Just a favor for a mate,” Harry answers, already heading for the door. He sounds—well, frankly, he sounds like he just gave a fucking incredible blowjob. There aren’t many other ways to do that to your throat. 

As the door closes behind him, he thinks he hears a faint “Wait, Harry,” but that’s probably just wishful thinking on the part of the many sections of his brain he’s ignoring in favor of getting back to his room to wank. 

Except—and of course this would happen tonight—he and Louis are sharing tonight. Short straw or what-have-you. Normally he doesn’t mind getting the double room, it just means more time for cuddling late at night, but tonight, tonight he wants to have a fantastic wank while thinking about the sounds Liam made and the way his stomach shook from not fucking Harry’s mouth and maybe what it would have been like if he _had_. And Louis being in the room is an impediment to that, means he’ll probably have to content himself with getting off in the shower. 

“Heyo, Haz,” Louis says when he realizes Harry’s come in, and then he immediately follows it up with, “Fucking hell, someone left you high and dry.”

Harry snorts, because of course Louis would comment on his dick. It’s probably his favorite part of their friendship, that they don’t stupidly pretend they never have boners around each other. Shrugging, Harry says, “Not as such,” and Louis’s eyebrows go as high as he’s ever seen them. 

“How did you even find someone to suck off?” he asks, sounding wry and impressed. 

“You wish you had my skills,” Harry says, which doesn’t answer the question at all but he’s hoping Louis won’t notice.

“So it was someone in the band then.”

Well. That didn’t work. 

“It’s my business where I put my mouth,” Harry whines. He suspects that Louis would tell him off for this—this favor he’s doing for Liam, especially for how he’s done it more than once and how much he wants to do it again. 

Emotions are fucking difficult sometimes, is all. And Louis has a way of picking the exact wrong (or maybe right) times to go all mature on him and start lecturing about things like how casual sex with a friend never ends well because feelings always get in the way. 

It would be a hell of a lot easier for feelings to not get in the way if Harry could go and jerk off instead of standing here with an obnoxious boner thinking about Liam. 

“Yes,” Louis says. “But I’m a nosy bastard and I want to know anyway.”

He’s going to be persistent, is the thing. He’s not an arsehole, well, he is an arsehole but Harry loves him anyway, and Louis isn’t going to let up until he knows who Harry’s snuck off to blow. 

“I was just helping Liam out a bit,” Harry says tersely. And then: “I’m going to go, you know,” as he gestures vaguely, hoping to convey _wank_ without actually having to say it. 

“Have fun,” Louis replies with a smirk. 

 

Liam’s cast comes off in less than a week, Harry thinks. He doesn’t want to ask, because that seems somehow _loaded_ , like it’ll mean more than just wanting Liam to be free from the itchy, constraining thing. What if Liam thinks he’s impatient for an excuse to stop helping him out? _What if Liam thinks he doesn’t want it to end?_

The latter is terrifying mostly because of how true it is. 

Still, the idea of getting his hand—his mouth, even—around Liam’s dick one more time is too tempting to pass up, which is how Harry finds himself outside Liam’s room, knocking cautiously and willing himself to not get a semi before he’s even through the door. 

“Hi,” Liam says when he answers the door. 

Harry smiles at him, more charm then nerves. “Hi.”

“I was just watching a film, do you want to join?” Liam asks, because he exists to keep anyone from feeling too uncomfortable and, well, there’s no suave way to say “I’d really like to suck you off once more before I lose my excuse for doing it.” 

“I’d love to,” Harry says instead, following Liam into the room and settling onto the bed with him. There’s no sofa in this room, and they all sit on each other’s beds constantly, but this feels kind of intimate, maybe. They’ve not done this on a bed, not after the first time. Harry’s never deliberately sat on Liam’s bed with the intention of touching his dick later. 

It’s a film they’ve both seen before, one of those comedies that seems to always be on the TV, and they flop next to each other on the bed. Liam is unusually cuddly, resting his head on Harry’s shoulder and playing with his hair until Harry’s eyes are drifting shut. And then Liam scrapes his fingernails across Harry’s scalp a bit harder than he means to—the move is followed by an apology that sounds entirely more concerned than the action merits—and Harry is wide awake and staring at Liam’s crotch. 

He’s always known that he’s got a bit of a _thing_ for people’s hands in his hair, on his scalp, but he’d not known how Liam’s fingernails across his scalp would make him feel. It turns out the answer is _really fucking horny_. 

“Do you,” Harry begins, and then nearly swallows his tongue when Liam ghosts his fingers around the shell of Harry’s ear. “Do you want some, er, you know, some help? Like I’ve done for you a few times now.”

Liam nods, Harry can feel his head move, and runs his fingers over Harry’s ear one more time. Harry shoves at him a bit with his elbows. “Budge up, I need to be able to move for this to work.” 

Liam titters a bit—it’s the first time he’s laughed while they’re doing this and Harry, Harry really wants him to do it again. Wants to make Liam laugh during sex, and after it too. And maybe all the rest of the time as well. 

This is all suspiciously like emotions that he doesn’t really want to be having right now, can’t be dealing with while he tries to fumble Liam’s trousers out of the way. Whether or not he’ll be able to get his mouth on Liam again is a more pressing concern than the feelings he may or may not be having as regards wanting to snog Liam senseless and then take him out to a fancy dinner and hold his hand. 

But also feelings about fucking Liam, and sucking his cock, and licking him all over, there are a lot of those too. 

Harry gets Liam’s trousers undone—really, who wears trousers to lie around their hotel room—and. Well. 

Liam’s not wearing any pants. 

Just—nothing. Harry pushes his trousers down and Liam’s dick is just—there. Half-hard and familiar but not familiar enough and. 

Fucking hell. 

Liam, naked under his trousers.

Harry is honest-to-god lightheaded from how quickly his dick goes from vaguely interested to _so fucking hard he’s going to die_. Liam looks at him and maybe his pupils are a bit wider than normal but the room is dim so it might just be that, and at the same time Harry is using every bit of willpower he has to keep from rutting against the bed.

He’s going to be fucking _dreaming_ about this. What if Liam went commando _on stage_ , no pants under his suit trousers and waistcoat. Actually, it’s probably best he never does that, because Harry would either die or pin him to the sofa and fuck him right there in the middle of the concert. 

At least Sugarscape would have something new to talk about.

Liam catches his eye—that’s new too, they don’t usually make eye contact—and shrugs a little. 

It’s possible Harry’s been too distracted by imagining all the places Liam could have forgone wearing pants that he’s forgotten to do anything like touching Liam’s dick. Which, incidentally, has gone from half to fully hard while Harry’s been thinking about it. 

That’s—interesting.

But he can think about it later. Now is the time for action. Harry finishes pushing Liam’s trousers down and wraps a hand around him. He knows the shape of Liam’s cock now, the way his hand feels around it, how to move his hand to make Liam’s breath hitch or his stomach tense or his thighs shake. And he knows what it tastes like, feels like in his mouth. He’s got off more than once to the thought of gripping Liam’s thighs and swallowing around him; he’d really like to do it again. 

Harry takes his hand off Liam, relishing the throaty, pleading noise he makes, and ghosts his thumb across Liam’s hipbone. Liam fucking _groans_ , low and messy, and Harry wants to bite his throat and fuck him against the wall and—this is getting out of hand. He crawls down the bed, toward where Liam’s dick is bobbing against his stomach, and glances up through his eyelashes. 

“Can I…?” he asks, and his voice is off, all rough and full of undisguised want. 

“Please,” Liam says, just as hoarse.

There’s no way Harry is going to say no to that, no way he could even tease around it because this is probably at least a third of what he’s thought about since he did this last, what he could do differently, what he could do _better_. 

One hand around the base, Harry sinks down as fast as he can, almost choking himself in his eagerness—that brings new meaning to _gagging for it_ , really, no one can ever know about this. Liam gasps and—fucking hell, he actually thrusts into Harry’s mouth, cock hitting the back of Harry’s throat and, yeah he’s pretty good at this but it’s hard to stay focused when he’s thinking about Liam fucking his mouth or Liam pinning him to the bed. 

Harry pulls all the way off, just to take a deep breath, jerking Liam in the absence of his mouth. Before he swallows him back down, he places a messy kiss to the head, licking around it. He runs his tongue down the underside and back up, teases his fingers around Liam’s balls, returns his mouth to the tip and sucks hard. 

Sucking Liam off is easy, because he’s Liam and therefore meticulously and perfectly polite. The one thrust was all he gives, shaking slightly with the effort of keeping still but letting Harry control everything. He’s making soft noises that might be Harry’s name, biting his lip to keep them from tumbling out too quickly. 

It’s a good distraction from his hard-on, sort of. Paying attention to Liam means he has less brainpower to spare for his own dick, and his hands are busy touching as much of Liam’s skin as he can get away with—his dick, his hipbones, the tops of his thighs, all muscle and tension. If he focuses enough on licking and sucking and how best to make Liam come as quickly as possible, he can almost forget how good it would feel to roll his hips down into the bed—how good it would feel to roll his hips down against Liam’s. 

The whole business is over quickly enough—getting off less than twice a week can’t do wonders for Liam’s stamina—and Harry is swallowing as Liam’s cock twitches in his mouth and he says Harry’s name in a way it’s possible no one has every said it before, choked and broken and like he’s the one who’s had a dick in his mouth. Harry resists the urge to lick his lips as Liam pulls away, trailing spit and come. 

And then he ruins all his good work by pressing a kiss, light and affectionate and completely unmistakable, to the inside of Liam’s knee. He lingers a moment, resting his lips against the skin, warm against warm, before he realizes what he’s done and scrambles away, nearly falling off the bed. 

Liam just looks sleepy and content and—Harry wants to curl up next to him and spend the night there, his face pressed into Liam’s neck and Liam’s arm wrapped around his hips. But even more than that, he wants to run away and figure out what the hell his emotions are doing. His spine is tingling, it feels like, and there’s no way his legs will be stable if he tries to stand, though. 

Harry presses his face into the bed, takes a deep breath and another and then a third when the first two accomplish basically nothing at all. Soft fingers card across his scalp, comforting and relaxing and arousing all at the same time. 

“Thank you,” Liam says. “For all the times you’ve, you know.” Harry’s not looking, but he’s sure Liam’s making a vague gesture in the direction of his penis. “I think I’ll be okay until I get the cast off.”

It’s nothing to read into, Liam is just the most dutifully polite person who ever existed, and he did just tell Harry that they’re done with this arrangement where Harry gets him off as a favor, for the good of the band and to keep Liam from going mad. It shouldn’t matter, really, since this isn’t anything Harry was doing for himself. 

Except how it absolutely was. He never gave Liam the chance to get tense again because he was too eager to touch him again, and—

Now would be a good time to leave. 

“It was nothing,” Harry forces out, and he expected to sound hoarse but he sounds a little like he might cry on top of that. At least worrying about crying in front of Liam about not getting to suck him off again is enough to make his hard-on subside a little bit, which makes it a hell of a lot easier to escape out from Liam’s room and back to his own. 

He’s still turned on enough to have a hand around his cock as soon as he’s got the door closer, though, jerking himself fast and nearly painful, and not even bothering to pretend he’s not thinking about Liam. 

 

“I think I fancy Liam,” Harry mumbles into the cover of Louis’s bed the following evening. 

Louis bursts out laughing, though he stops when Harry whines. Harry’s got his face pressed into the bed, can’t see what Louis is doing, but there’s a hand on his back and then Louis’s voice, suddenly sympathetic. “Wait, really?”

Harry rolls onto his side, wrinkling his nose at Louis. “It’s not so odd, he’s fit!”

“Of course he is, love,” Louis says, patting Harry’s back in a way that’s both comforting and a bit condescending. Harry doesn’t say anything. 

“So you fancy him and you get to suck him off,” Louis continues. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

Harry tries to shrug, which doesn’t go especially well because he’s lying down. “He told me he doesn’t need me to help him get off anymore. So.” Harry’s trying valiantly to sounds blasé but he’s not entirely sure how well it’s coming off, his voice might have cracked a little toward the end of the sentence. 

“Mate,” Louis says, sounding slightly like he’s talking to a six-year-old. “Have you told him you fancy him?”

“… no,” Harry says, and Louis sighs audibly. 

“Why not?” 

Harry rolls back onto his stomach, burying his face again, and doesn’t answer. 

Louis persists. “Does he _know_ you fancy him?”

“I don’t want to make everything weird,” Harry volunteers instead of actually answering the question. “With the band and stuff.”

“What if he fancies you as well?” Louis asks, as he moves to lie down next to Harry, who doesn’t even make a token attempt at answering.

“Oh, Haz.” He pulls Harry into a hug, trailing fingers through his hair and letting him hide his face in Louis’s neck. “Do you want to date Liam?”

Harry hums into Louis’s shoulder and waits for the next question. It’s nice here, away from everything, and repercussions for his actions, and erections that mean things he ought to sort out. When he’s snuggling Louis, he doesn’t have to worry about whether Liam fancies him or what admitting he really wants to suck Liam off and then take him out to dinner and then sleep next to him and then eat breakfast together might do to the band if Liam doesn’t want the same. 

He’s not used to not knowing. People are easy, easy to predict and convince and seduce. But—Liam’s not people. Liam is _Liam_ , with his stupid earnest eyes and his stupid confused face and his stupid attractive smile. And the way he looks when he’s about to come, overcome and dazed and desperate. And the way he smiles when Harry cuddles up to him on the bus when he’s clearly feeling homesick—he didn’t used to do that, not at first, and then he grew into it. 

“You didn’t answer,” Louis points out to him.

“Was thinking about Liam,” Harry says absently, lulled into a false sense of security by the way Louis’s fingernails are moving lightly across his scalp. 

Louis pulls him in closer, a proper squeeze—or as close as they can manage lying down—and then drags Harry’s face out of his shoulder to meet his eyes. Just the look on his face is enough to make Harry’s stomach sink; there’s no way this ends with anything but him being told he needs to talk to Liam.

He mostly doesn’t want to hear it because Louis is right. Pining away is going to make everyone just as uncomfortable as Harry telling Liam he wants to hold his hand and be boyfriends and then getting rejected. 

It’s just—rejection is rubbish. It’s scary. And Harry doesn’t want to bollocks up his life and Liam’s and Louis’s and Zayn’s and Niall’s all at once; there’s so much more riding on this band than just his own happiness. 

“You know,” Louis says, and that’s not exactly where Harry was expecting this to start. “I pretended I didn’t know you fancied Liam but it was kind of blindingly obvious all along.” 

“Oh.” Harry feels a little ill. “Is it?”

“I don’t think Liam’s worked it out, if that’s what you’re asking. Niall and Zayn probably know. Paul may have put it together as well. Your mum hasn’t texted me yet but Gemma was hinting at it the other day.”

Well. 

He can always throw himself off the roof of the hotel, they’re high enough up he might die. Even if he didn’t, he’d probably be trampled to death by fans. Or Paul would kill him with his bare hands afterward. Frankly, as long as there’s a way out of this situation that ends with Harry no longer having to face another human being ever, it’ll be okay. 

Louis is still looking at him, a hand on his chin so he can’t hide from it. “I have spent a lot of time wondering whether Liam fancies you as well.”

Harry’s always wondered what it feels like to have his heart actually turn over in his chest, except for how he’s never actually believed that’s a feeling people could have. 

It feels kind of uncomfortable, though. Like his body can’t contain all the different emotions he’s experiencing all at the same time—hope, stupid hope, bubbling through his stomach, but it’s mixed with anxiety and embarrassment and fear and something he’s never properly given a name but that makes him want to kiss Liam between his eyes and never let go of his hand. 

“Yeah?” he asks, and his voice is unsteady. 

“He’s more subtle than you,” Louis says. “But that’s not saying a lot. You’re the least subtle person I’ve ever met.” He taps the spot on Harry’s cheek where his dimple would be if he were smiling. Harry grins weakly. 

“I really like him,” he says. That’s not what he means, really. What he means is _I really like him and I don’t want to fuck this up_ and what if everything goes spectacularly wrong? and _it’s easier when things don’t matter this much_.

It’s really lovely, how he doesn’t have to actually say everything out in words with Louis. 

“I know, babes.”

Into the lingering silence that follows, Harry says, “I asked him if I could get him off because he can’t do it with the cast. You know, as a favor because he was tense. And then I accidentally sucked him off.”

He can actually _hear_ Louis raise his eyebrows. “How do you accidentally suck someone off?”

“I was thinking about other things and then my mouth was on his dick,” Harry says, and he wishes that it weren’t true because, seriously, how is he such a twat?

Louis buries his head against Harry’s shoulder, shaking with silent laughter. “Your life,” he says.

 

They all tackle Liam nearly to the ground when he comes back from the doctor less one cast, but otherwise, Harry avoids touching him as much as possible. 

It’s—difficult, to say the least. He’s grown accustomed to having his hands all over Liam. Well, all over all of them, but he likes having his hands all over Liam best (except for Louis, maybe, but that’s different). He doesn’t actually avoid Liam, that would be conspicuous and also impossible, but he doesn’t want to make things weird for Liam. 

Louis calls him stupid twice by whispering it in his ear, and another four times at least with his eyes. Harry just sighs and flails his arms a bit, which means that Liam’s not approaching him either. Louis understands, of course, because that’s how they are. 

And maybe Harry’s being a bit chicken about it, so what if he is. Everyone gets nervous about things that matter, that’s how you know they matter. He thought he was going to be sick all over the stage before his X Factor audition, and then once he _was_ sick before one of the live shows. 

Of course, that’s kind of a terrible example because he did those things anyway and they all worked out for the best, and Harry’s kind of looking for excuses to avoid talking to Liam in case it all goes completely pear-shaped. It’s a bit silly, really; Liam is too kind to stop talking to Harry over something like his; it would probably take a confession of having sacrificed puppies and small children to Satan to accomplish that. 

And then Liam gets him alone one night, follows Harry into his hotel room, and evidently they’re going to have a conversation now.

“Er,” Liam says, and turns the color of a tomato. Harry waits for him to continue, but he doesn’t just stares uncomfortably at his feet. 

When Liam finally speaks, what he says is the last thing Harry expects to hear. Well, not the very last, not _I need you to help me hide a body_ or _let’s get Louis drunk and steal all his trousers_. But he still nearly falls over from surprise when Liam says, choked and clearly mortified, “I owe you—you know. You got me off and I should return the favor.”

Nearly falls over from surprise _and arousal_ , really. 

“What?” he says, forcing himself to focus on remembering to breathe instead of the mental image of Liam on his knees, his mouth stretched around Harry’s dick, because _fuck_.

“Don’t make me say it again,” Liam pleads.

“I—just—seriously?” Harry asks, because Liam offered to reciprocate and Harry wants to push him into the wall and kiss him until his lips are red from it, and then suck him off again, and then fuck him into the mattress or get fucked into the mattress, or—

“It’s fair,” Liam says, and that’s just. Harry wants to hug him too, on top of all the other feelings. 

“You don’t need to. I mean. I didn’t do it so you’d get me off later.”

Liam’s blushing even harder than before, and he might actually be unable to speak—he keeps opening his mouth and closing it again without saying anything.

Harry hasn’t even done this before, not when he wasn’t pretty certain it was going to work, not with this genuine and nauseating risk of spectacular failure. But Liam, he knows Liam has, over and over and, painfully, over again. Not for the first time, he wants to punch the people who did this to Liam, who looked at his stupid, endearing earnestness and saw a way to mock him, who told him to put himself out there and then laugh when he failed. Harry hates that Liam’s looking at him like Harry has the ability to take him apart—like Harry might actually do it. 

So he takes a deep breath, because he and Louis pinkie promised once they would never be as terrible as Liam’s school friends. “I do fancy you, though,” Harry says, and it sounds so strange out loud, awkward and insignificant. “A lot,” he adds, because that seems important too, making it clear to Liam that this isn’t just a light-hearted crush or a whim or something. 

“Oh,” Liam says, still not meeting Harry’s eyes. “Is that why you, so that I would want to, to suck you off too?” He says it, the words leave his mouth—which is difficult to believe—but the last bit of the sentence is so rushed Harry can barely make the words out. 

“No!” Harry says, too emphatically, maybe, but that’s completely the wrong idea and he would never try to manipulate someone into sleeping with him and _Liam knows that_.

Of course, Liam is even more nervous than he is right now, Harry can tell from how he won’t look up and he’s twitchy, his hands in his pockets and then against his sides and then clasped behind his back and then in his pockets again. 

“No,” Harry repeats. “I got you off because I didn’t want you miserable and frustrated, and then I went down on you because I wanted to. Even if you never want me to do it again and you never want to do it to me, I wanted to suck you off. That was the reason.”

“I want to suck you off,” Liam says quietly and— _what?_ It’s like someone tried to pull Harry’s stomach out the bottom of his foot and his brain out his ear and all he can hear is white noise. Liam doesn’t look like he’s talking anymore, which is good because Harry doesn’t think he’s ever going to be able to process actual words again; all he can think is that Liam might have just actually said he wants to suck Harry off.

Or Harry might have hallucinated that, some kind of dream he willed into being through the sheer force of his wishes. 

His eyes follow Liam’s Adam’s apple as he swallows and that’s the reason it takes a minute for the words to actually process when Liam follows his earlier earth-shattering revelation with “I think I fancy you as well.”

Harry must have been the one to move first, because he doesn’t think Liam would have done in a million years, and because he’s not the one with his back pressed to the wall, but he doesn’t remember doing it at all. He remembers Liam talking and he remembers the way his entire mind went blank save the possibility that Liam might fancy him, and then he has Liam pressed against the nearest wall—by the door—and is kissing him. 

His lips are dragging across Liam’s, hard and messy and maybe too much; he’s kissing the way he feels right now, overwhelmed and out-of-control. Liam winds a hand into Harry’s hair, pulls him back slightly, and Harry whines at the loss of contact until Liam starts pressing gentle, close-mouthed kisses to his lips. 

He’s never kissed anyone like this, barely touching and moving so achingly slowly, letting Liam kiss from one corner of his mouth to the other, across his cheekbones and eyebrows and forehead and eventually settling one last kiss on the tip of his nose. Harry’s chest hurts, his eyes are prickling a little like he might cry. 

“Hi,” Liam whispers, still so close Harry can feel the words against his lips. 

“Hi,” he whispers back, and then he’s kissing Liam again, winding one hand around his waist and pulling him off the wall until they’re crushed against each other from hip to shoulder. 

It’s different than he’s used to, kissing someone almost the same height as he is. They’re so close together, his nose pressing into Liam’s cheek and Liam’s arm curving around his waist. He wants to move, so that he can have Liam pressed into the bed and kiss down his neck and his chest and across his shoulders, but Harry’s not sure how to make his legs work while Liam’s lips are moving along his jaw. 

He pulls away slightly, pressing his face into the curve between Liam’s shoulder and his neck, squeezing his eyes shut tight and inhaling deeply to try and calm himself. It doesn’t really work, not with how he’s surrounded by the smell of Liam’s skin, the warmth of it. Harry kisses him, quick, and moves his mouth up to worry slightly at his earlobe. He nearly stumbles backward when Liam moves, but his body catches up after a moment. Liam is moving them towards the bed.

Liam is _moving them towards the bed_. 

It’s nothing new, not really. He’s seen Liam’s dick, touched it, had his mouth on it, but now Liam’s trying to walk and kiss the side of his head at the same time and Harry’s trying not to think too much about how his stomach still feels kind of missing. 

The time it takes them to actually get to the bed is a blur of Liam’s lips against his, tongues sliding together. Harry works his hand under the back of Liam’s shirt, somehow, pressing against the skin there. He’s against the bed before he expects it, too focused on the way Liam’s skin feels, the way he can kiss Liam’s neck and start working on a lovebite against his collarbone. 

And then Liam’s pressing him backwards, settling across his hips on the bed. The weight of it is making him a little lightheaded, or maybe that’s from how he cannot have any blood that’s not in his dick, or how Liam’s pushing Harry’s shirt up, bunching it under his arms and trailing his hands across Harry’s chest. There’s something in his eyes, a look Harry hasn’t yet learned to read, one he’s never seen before; he’s smiling and biting his lip and can’t seem to stop flicking his eyes all over, from Harry’s abs to his lips to where his jeans are low on his hips. 

Harry doesn’t know what it means yet, the way Liam’s eyes are sweeping over him, but he knows he never wants it to stop. He knows it makes him want to kiss Liam even more desperately than he did a minute ago, and he’s pretty sure it means he’s allowed. 

Reaching up, Harry curls a hand around the back of Liam’s neck and tugs him down into a kiss. Liam gasps a bit against Harry’s mouth, which Harry mostly takes as an invitation to sweep his tongue against Liam’s teeth. The gasp turns into a groan and—well. Harry’s on his back, pressed chest-to-chest with Liam, one hand in Liam’s hair and the other resting on the waistband of his jogging bottoms, fingertips edging underneath. If you’d told him yesterday—half an hour ago, even—that his was going to happen, he’d never have believed it. 

But it is, Harry’s sure of it, there’s no way this is a dream because he could possibly dream something as wonderful as the sound Liam makes when Harry slips a hand under his jogging bottoms and squeezes his arse. Liam bites at his lower lip, too, and Harry makes a slightly embarrassing keening noise. 

He wants to do everything. It’s overwhelming, the options he has now, just because he’s kissing Liam and Liam is kissing him back and they could do so many things, blowjobs and handjobs and grinding and fucking, they could actually properly fuck and—and he can take Liam’s clothes off.

That’s the most pressing thing, none of the others can happen until Harry tears his mouth away from Liam’s neck where he’s sucking another lovebite and actually takes their clothes off so he can tongue across Liam’s abs and kiss the inside of his thighs and bite his hipbones. With extreme difficulty, because kissing Liam is possibly the best thing that’s ever happened to him in his life, and he’s including the pop star bit in that, Harry rolls them over and sits up, straddling Liam’s hips. 

“Clothes off,” he says. 

“Bossy,” Liam says, but he’s smiling and reaching for the button of Harry’s jeans. “I’m surprised you’ve managed to keep yours on this long. It might be a new record.”

Harry just laughs; defending his ability to keep his clothes on is too much work. And futile; he fucking hates having to wear clothes. “Now I’m really in a hurry to get them off,” he says instead, pulling his shirt over his head and moving on to Liam’s quickly. 

It proves impossible to get Liam’s jogging bottoms off while Harry’s sitting on his hips, a problem that Liam solves by kissing Harry until he can’t remember his own name and rolling them over again. He throws the jogging bottoms across the room with surprising gusto and then they’re both in their pants and Liam’s dragging his fingernails lightly around Harry’s nipple. 

“Oh,” Harry says, choked and higher than he thought his voice could go. Liam flicks his thumb across the nipple, eyes curious, and grins when Harry arches into it. He does it again immediately, and Harry pushes into the touch even harder, and then Liam’s leaning forward and sucking it into his mouth. 

Harry—Harry wants to die. Because Liam’s swirling his tongue around and sucking and Harry can feel that he’s hard where their hips are still pressed together. He bucks up once and Liam reciprocates immediately. 

“I still want to suck you off,” Liam says. Harry needs him to never do that again, because he’ll come in his pants, completely untouched, just from the thought of it. 

“Fucking hell,” he says, and then when Liam just stares at him: “God, yes, please, do it.”

“I’ve never done this before.” Liam’s biting his lip again as he edges his fingers under Harry’s pants, because apparently he thinks Harry cares about something like experience when he’s faced with the prospect of having Liam’s mouth on his dick. Because apparently he thinks Harry’s going to last more than ten seconds and his experience, or lack thereof, will actually matter. 

“I—I don’t think it’s going to last very long anyway,” Harry chokes out. Liam giggles a little, but he also pushes Harry’s pants down past his knees and fucking _stares_ at his dick. The combination is both really confusing and really hot. 

Then Liam’s hand is around the base of his cock, stroking once, and Liam’s eyes are fixed on him, sizing him up and looking at him a little bit like he’s something to eat. Which he is, in a manner of speaking. 

Harry’s distracted by Liam’s eyes, and also his lips and his face and his shoulders and the way his thumb is moving slightly against his dick, and it’s a surprise when he feels Liam press a soft kiss to the tip of his cock. His hips jerk slightly, and Liam pulls away—fuck, that wasn’t what he wanted to have happen—looking worried. “Try to be still?” he says hesitantly. Harry nods, not sure he’s physically capable of forming words. 

When Liam wraps his mouth around the head of Harry’s cock, it’s like the entire world goes empty except for the sensation of it, warm and wet and a bit of suction and a rush of emotions Harry was completely unprepared for. Liam—Liam has never done this before and he’s doing it for Harry and his tongue is moving now, messy and uncertain but also _amazing_. Harry’s genuinely too far gone to be able to tell whether it’s an objectively good blowjob or if he’s just too caught up in how it’s Liam doing it to know the difference. 

Regardless, it’s a blowjob, heat and suction and Liam looking up at him through his eyelashes, hands splayed across Harry’s hips. He’s taking more into his mouth now, focused and deliberate. Liam always tries so hard at everything, and Harry’s maybe more surprised than he should be that this is just the same. He probably ought to reassure him somehow, tell him that he doesn’t need to make such an effort because Harry’s about thirty seconds from coming as it is, but it’s kind of unbearably hot, the focus and the concentration and how he can tell from the set of Liam’s shoulders that he’s determined to do the best he possibly can. 

Harry rests his hand against Liam’s hollowed cheek, thumb stroking along his chin, and Liam makes a soft noise in his throat, which goes straight to the heat pooling in Harry’s stomach, makes his dick throb and his whole body tense. 

The noise vibrates in Liam’s throat, around Harry’s dick, and he can feel the way Liam’s mouth is working with his hand and around his dick at the same time, and it’s too much. Everything goes fuzzy around him as he arches off the bed, shaking a little when he falls back down. 

Harry shakes his head until he can focus again, can see how Liam’s sitting between his knees and smiling nervously. There’s nothing he can do but haul him up, a little weak from his orgasm, and kiss him messily. Liam tastes different now, bitter and new and, fuck, that must be what Harry tastes like. 

He reaches down and shoves Liam’s pants out of the way and he’s done this before, jerking Liam off isn’t new, but he’s still shaky and spent and Liam’s pressed tight against him, mouthing desperately at Harry’s jawline. 

“Fuck,” Liam hisses when Harry’s hand goes around him properly, starts moving, slow and a little unsteady with the bad angle and also how everything is generally overwhelming. It only takes a few pumps of Harry’s fist until Liam is biting down on his shoulder and going stiff against him. 

This time, Harry doesn’t resist the urge to lick his hand clean afterward, and even though Liam turns bright red, he doesn’t look away. His eyes are wide, pupils still blown, and he’s tucked up against Harry’s chest. 

Harry never wants to move. 

“We can do this again, right?” Liam asks. “Because there are other things I’d like to try.” His voice is low, maybe lower than Harry’s now, and he sounds drowsy and a little fucked-out and everything Harry’s ever wanted to hear on him. He nuzzles the side of Harry’s neck and, god, if he’d known before that all it took to get Liam this cuddly was a bit of sex, he’d have gone in for it years ago. 

Harry nods, because he’s not sure he can actually talk yet. He can feel Liam’s smile against his shoulder, and wraps an arm around him to pull him closer. When they wake up, he’ll explain how he wants to do this every day and twice on Sundays, for as long as possible. 

“Good,” Liam mumbles, and then after a pause so long Harry thinks he’s fallen asleep: “I like it better when you stay and we can cuddle after.”


End file.
